It is 6:35 Friday morning and I'm watching cartoons with 31 other men. Some of them are still in their underwear, alternately gazing up at the television and down at their bare feet, muttering, "Coffee, coffee . . ." Others have already showered and combed their hair and are now sitting up straight, with their backs to the television, watching the clock across the room as if it were a descending deity. The rest of us are hunched over, glaring at Muppet Babies through half-closed eyes. I look down at the piece of paper in my hands. My gaze rests on the third line:

3. I wake up fresh and rested most mornings.

A voice crackles over the loudspeaker: "Number One—Rupert. Lab." This is the first thing the voice has said since it told us to wake up, to get out of bed, to sit in these chairs. And now everyone glances over at Rupert as he stands and makes his way past the pool table, past the Super Nintendo station, past the dining tables, across the gray room lit by fluorescent bulbs.

9. My daily life is full of things that keep me interested.

10. I am afraid of losing my mind.

It's 6:42. None of us has had much sleep, and now the door to the sleeping room is locked. We won't be given any food until noon. I decide not to look at the clock anymore. Without it, however, it could be any time of day; heavy venetian blinds close out the world. The only way out is a door on the far side of the room. But if anyone tries to open it a siren will sound.

"Number Five—Jesus. Lab." Jesus is a big smiley guy from Colombia who punches me in the arm when I beat him at pool and lifts me off the ground in a bear hug when I lose. The voice over the loudspeaker does not pronounce his name with the Latin accent, Hey-Zeus, or even with the French one: Jay-Zoo. Here he is just plain "Jesus."

Jesus mutters something in Spanish as he pushes himself out of his chair.

"What did he say?" asks Number Four, sitting down.

"Think of the money," I say.

Number Four nods. It has become a sort of materialistic mantra around here—"Think of the money." This is not, after all, a jail, nor rehab, nor some Orwellian summer camp. This is Phoenix International Life Sciences Inc.—the Rolls Royce of clinical testing. And we're all in it for the money.

If you want to make some cash as a human lab rat, this is the place to be. According to the company's prospectus, it is "the world's fifth-largest contract research organization serving the pharmaceutical, generic drug, and biotechnology industries." With net revenues of $171 million in 1998, Phoenix pays top dollar to healthy males for the right to test drugs on their bodies. And although it now has clinics across the United States and Europe, Phoenix is wisely based in Montreal, a city overflowing with poor young men.